Gaming News

House of the Dragon: Game of Thrones Prequel Renewed for Season 2

HBO has confirmed that Game of Thrones prequel House of the Dragon will return for a second season. The news comes after just one episode of the show - set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones - premiered on HBO and HBO Max, but isn't entirely surprising given the success of its predecessor. The first episode, which aired on August 21, was the largest premiere in HBO Max history as close to 10 million people tuned in on opening night. Ironically this proved to be a little too much for the streaming service, as several thousand users were left unable to watch due to the app crashing. While it's unlikely the numbers will stay as high for the entirety of the ten episode season, Game of Thrones fans in for the long haul will...

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Wo Long: How Team Ninja's New Soulslike Differs from Nioh

While the new trailer for Team Ninja’s highly anticipated Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty contains actual gameplay for the first time, there’s still a lot we don’t know about Team Ninja’s new Soulsborne title. Most notably, after making two installments of the Nioh series, the team decided to go in a somewhat new direction - and we wanted to know how it differs. IGN sat down with producer Fumihiko Yasuda and development producer Masaaki Yamagiwa to find out how Wo Long is different from the developer’s popular past series. The most obvious thing that sets Wo Long apart from Team Ninja’s previous efforts is its setting, and it seems that this new location will differentiate Wo Long from Nioh in multiple ways. “Being set in China, we were able...

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AEW Fight Forever - A Much Needed Alternative to the Mainstream - gamescom 2022

As wrestling games got closer and closer to simulating the real action between the ropes, it has felt like some of the magic that made the genre such a smash hit in the N64 and early PlayStation eras was lost. AEW Fight Forever is looking to reignite that magic, and for both better and worse, it’s succeeding — Fight Forever plays almost exactly like WWF No Mercy, and while the core gameplay certainly hit me with waves of nostalgia, it also stung me with little rocks and pebbles of things that hold up less well to a modern standard. Let’s start with the good. Fight Forever is exactly the kind of solid, pick-up-and-play friendly, arcadey wrestling game that the genre is very much in need of. A gap that WWE 2K Battlegrounds tried to...

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IGN UK Podcast #659: Live from a Cologne Roof at Midnight

In the midst of the German heat at gamescom 2022, Cardy, Joe, Matt, and Dale come together to deliver their thoughts on the best games they've seen at the show so far. We've got The Callisto Protocol, High on Life, The Devil in Me, Atlas Fallen, Alone on the Dark, Aliens: Dark Descent, Gord, plus the reveal of the dark secrets that live within Papa Joe's. What caught your eye from gamescom 2022? What song would you like to hear a robot play on a tuba? Feel free to send us an email at ign_ukfeedback@ign.com. IGN UK Podcast #659: Live from a Cologne Roof at Midnight IGN UK Podcast #658: Better Call She-Hulk IGN UK Podcast #657: Enter Sandman (and The Predator) IGN UK Podcast #656: The Build-a-Game OST Workshop IGN UK Podcast #655...

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Warhammer 40,000: Darktide Is the Shooter 40k Deserves

We don’t get big-budget Warhammer 40,000 games all that regularly. And when we do, they’re rarely action-packed shooters. That already makes the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, from Vermintide developer Fatshark, a rarity. But, based on the 30-minute, four-player co-op session I played at Gamescom 2022, I think Darktide may be the rarest of rares: a genuinely good 40k FPS. Anyone who loves Games Workshop’s grimdark future will know that it’s the specific details that make the setting what it is. A lasrifle, for instance, is not the pew-pew E-11 blaster that the Stormtroopers of Star Wars use. It shares more in common with the infantry rifles of World War 1 than it does a sci-fi laser weapon, and Fatshark has captured its...

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Why Vikings on Trampolines Took Two Decades to Make

D-Pad Studio is not known for rushing its work. Its second game, 2016’s Owlboy, took the team ten years to make. It was restarted multiple times due to studio concerns about fan expectations in the wake of a new renaissance for Metroidvanias, various life events, and director Simon Stafsnes Andersen’s acknowledged struggles with depression. And now, D-Pad is on the cusp of releasing a game that’s taken them even longer to complete: Vikings on Trampolines, which has been in the works for 20 years. Speaking to IGN at Gamescom, creator Jo-Remi Madsen says that their bouncing battler was conceived when he was about 14 years old, playing games like Mario Kart and Super Smash Bros. with his sister. “She would always give up,” Madsen says...

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Vikings on Trampolines Hands-On Preview | gamescom 2022

Much like the two button fighting game, Divekick, Vikings on Trampolines is a game that manages to squeeze a ton of fun and depth out of the simplest of controls. It’s a 2D “bounce-em-up” game that is surprisingly self-explanatory: You are a Viking, you bounce off trampolines, and attempt to stay alive by avoiding the ground like it’s lava. It’s about as easy to pick up-and-play as a game can get, and based on my 15-20 minutes with an early build of the game, it’s a game that I definitely want to pick up and play much more of in the future. The wild thing about Vikings on Trampolines is that it’s a game that’s played entirely with the control stick. Every level begins with you being dropped onto a trampoline, and from there you can...

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Aussie Deals: Horizon FW for $51, 29 Buck PS5 Titles, Steam Publisher Sales and More!

Thank your own personal deity—possibly Nurgle, antagonist of Darktide—it's Friday! I'm back on deck after a week away. Said deck is awash with crazy deals. Personally, I'd gravitate towards those $29 PS5 games and the unusually cheap Breath of the Wild. I'm also totally buying a LEGO Seinfeld set after I write this. That discount is gold, Jerry. Gold. Oh, and one should never go past a cheap controller sale (X/S and DualSense both). Keep a sparey for when a mate drops by for co-op. Or as a replace when you rage-snap your main. Happens to the best of us. Notable Sales for Nintendo Switch Purchase Cheaply for PC Exciting Offers for XO/XS Product Savings for PS4/PS5 Legit Discounts for LEGO Adam Mathew is our Aussie deals...

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Battlefield 2042 Season 2 Details Revealed

Battlefield 2042 is about to enter Season 2 – Master of Arms. The upcoming season begins on August 30th on all platforms and brings a new map, a new specialist, plenty of new weapons and hardware, and 100 tiers of new battle pass content. Season 2: Master of Arms moves the action to the Panama Canal with its new Stranded map – an exciting new fight across a drained lake, with a shipwrecked tanker that also serves as an illicit black-market hub. Battlefield 2042 players will find themselves vying for control of the Starg Ceres, now a market for illicit military hardware. As you might expect, the tanker itself favors close-quarters combat with tight corridors, a lot of cover, and short distances between objectives. Might want to pack...

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WB Games Chief Says Division Has 'Critically Important' Role to Play Amid Internal Shakeups

It's been a rough time for Warner Bros. Discovery, which has dealt with delays and cancellations amid the fallout from its merger, but at least one divison appears to still doing well. In a new interview with Axios Gaming, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment chief David Haddad touted the divisions recent successes, which include Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga and Multiversus. Both games have managed to sell tens of millions of units while garnering solid reviews. According to Haddad, the division is profitable and does not look likely to suffer the sort of layoffs and cancellations that have impacted other parts of WB Discovery. "I do believe, especially moving forward, that we have a critically important role to play inside...

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Best Laptop Stand for Desks 2022

You know the experience: set your laptop on a tabletop or standing desk, and you’re in for an ergonomic nightmare. The screen always seems too low, forcing you to angle your neck and slump your shoulders at an uncomfortable angle. The last thing you need is back pain from work that's already a pain. And if you plan to use a full-sized keyboard, there's nowhere to place it, as the laptop itself is in the way. You can also just forget about trying to use your laptop in bed with the impossible-to-reach angles and the device constantly overheating. That’s where a laptop stand comes in handy. There’s an entire industry of laptop stands designed to raise, angle, and support your laptop in any situation imaginable. If you spend much of your...

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Pentiment Preview: One Monk Invents a Murder in Fallout New Vegas Director’s Latest Adventure

Years ago, I frequented a website called The Toast that ran, alongside wonderful columns and criticism, various literary nerd gags including a recurring bit called “Two Monks.” Two Monks was written as a dialogue between the titular religious duo who were, in most of the episodes, trying to figure out best practices for medieval art by bantering about the “correct” way to depict various animals, people, and objects shown in real-life artworks. If you’ve had any experience with medieval art, you know the field is absolutely bizarre when taken out of context, so most of the conversations were along the lines of how many eyes a dog should have (seven), what wrestling is (confused hugging) and whether birds have meetings (yes, complete with...

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Umbrella Academy Director to Adapt PlayStation's Horizon Netflix Series

Umbrella Academy director Steve Blackman is heading up the Netflix Horizon series based on PlayStation's Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. During an interview with Tudum, he confirmed that he’s adapting the popular PlayStation series for Netflix and that Aloy will be the show’s main character. “Horizon Zero Dawn is an exceptionally well-crafted game with wonderful characters not often seen in the rank-and-file of the gaming world,” he said. “Guerrilla Games has created an incredibly lush and vivid world of man and machine who find themselves on a collision course to oblivion.” Aloy made her debut in Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2017, with a sequel, Horizon Forbidden West released earlier this year. Throughout it, Aloy grapples with her...

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Gotham Knights: Check Out a Harley Quinn Boss Fight - IGN First

We discovered that Harley Quinn would be a major Gotham Knights villain earlier this week, and now we have a section of a boss fight against her to reveal. Harley is part of one of Gotham Knights' villain arcs, entire questlines centred around the activities of of a supervillain, which run in parallel to the main storyline. Warner Bros. Games Montreal's version of Harley has come through her Joker and Suicide Squad phases, and is now setting out to become a master criminal on her own terms. In terms of the context of this boss fight itself, we had game director Geoff Ellenor explain it for us: "Right before you start the Harley boss fight, which takes place in Gotham Hospital, up until this moment, you've been pursuing Harley -...

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The Devil in Me Lurks in the Shadows of Resident Evil - gamescom 2022

Jessie Buckley has been no stranger to running away from dangerous men in the dark this year. This time, the setting is a modern recreation of infamous 19th century serial killer H.H. Holmes’ murder castle, as the Devil in the White City changes address to The Devil in Me. The final installment in season one of Supermassive Games’ Dark Pictures Anthology looks set to be its most intriguing entry yet - not only shining a light on real-world macabre history, but lurking in the shadows of fictional horror milestones such as Resident Evil and Saw. My roughly 15 minutes of hands-on with the game began by exploring the long-abandoned spa of a hotel the playable documentary crew had been filming in. It was no time to relax however, with the...

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Atomic Heart’s Combat Looks Buck Wild In Latest Gamescom 2022 Trailer

A new trailer for Atomic Heart has been shown as part of the Xbox Gamescom live stream, and it’s almost four whole minutes of incredibly wild combat antics. Looking like a BioShock that’s drunk several strong coffees and a Red Bull, the combat in Atomic Heart seems relentless. We’re shown numerous encounters, all of which are fought using a mix of supernatural powers, guns, and melee weapons. What’s notable is how fluidly these three elements are chained together, with the player using a telekinetic attack to slam enemies up and down before finishing them off with brutal axe chops or bursts of machine gun fire. Among the powers showcased are the aforementioned telekinesis (which seems to work much like Half-Life 2’s gravity gun), a...

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How Alone in the Dark Is Borrowing From the Games It Inspired - gamescom 2022

Often lauded as the original 3D survival horror game, Alone in the Dark arrived on the scene in 1992 and created a genre that still stands firm in 2022. But now, with the recently announced re-imagining, it’s clear to see Alone in the Dark is taking it’s own inspirations from the series that pioneered the genre, Resident Evil. During a brief presentation I saw at Gamescom 2022, the developers from Pieces Interactive were very clear that Alone in the Dark is not a reboot, or even a remake, choosing to refer to their upcoming release as a love letter to the 1992 original. Despite lead characters Edward Carnby and Emily Hartwood making a return, the story is a completely fresh take for the series. Writer Mikael Hedberg – of Amnesia: The...

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Gamescom 2022: The Best Stuff We’ve Seen So Far

From the bloodiest to the bloody brilliant, these are the very best things we've seen at Gamescom 2022 so far. We'll be adding to this feature as we see and play more games as the show goes on, so be sure to come back throughout the week! Dead Island 2 is Bloody Disgusting After eight years in the wilderness, Dead Island 2 is back and it’s gorier than ever. Despite being built from ground up, Dead Island 2 feels a lot like the early version of the game debuted back in 2014. LA’s undead-infested boulevards are instantly familiar, as is the minute-to-minute zombie massacring, but it’s so much more disgusting. The procedural tech behind the new gore system, nicknamed FLESH, means there are unlimited ways to dismember your enemies...

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Dark Souls 3 PC Servers Back Online After 8 Months, Dark Souls 1 and 2 to Follow

FromSoftware has announced that Dark Souls 3's PC servers are back online after a serious exploit brought them down in January. Dark Souls' official Twitter account posted the update (below), confirming that Dark Souls 3 can be played as intended again for the first time in over seven months, and that the development team is also working to restore these features to previous games Dark Souls and Dark Souls 2. "Online features for the PC version of Dark Souls 3 have been reactivated," the tweet said. "We are working to restore these features for all other Dark Souls titles and will inform you when they are back in service. Thank you once more for your patience and support." The servers were first taken down after an exploit was...

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Skull and Bones: How Exploration Works

With the waves beneath you and the wind in your sails, the Indian Ocean is yours to fully explore in Skull and Bones. But, as we recently learned, most of Ubisoft’s upcoming pirate simulator takes place at sea. So, how much is there to discover out there, aside from water, water, and, well, more water? We spoke to developers from Ubisoft Singapore to find out. On Land Despite the majority of Skull and Bones’ map being made up of ocean, you can step off your ship and walk on dry land. Not every island you see is explorable, but you can weigh anchor at dens and outposts; two special location types that have everything a pirate needs to prepare for further adventures. “The gameplay on land is about socializing, crafting, building up...

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High on Life: There’s a Lot More to This Shooter Than We Saw at Opening Night Live

We’ve already seen quite a lot of High on Life, the expectedly bizarre, exceptionally gross new single-player shooter. The big pitch is that Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland and his team at Squanch Games have built a first-person shooter that sees you bounty hunting for aliens, and taking them down with talking guns. But it was the little details that impressed when I got to try out the game for myself. Opening Night Live included a boss fight from High on Life’s early sections, but my 25 minute hands-on (which you can watch below) included the full mission that leads up to that battle. The demo begins in your player-character’s house (populated by their exceptionally confused big sister and their new alien bounty hunter...

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Crypt of the NecroDancer Getting Rhythm Game Spin-off

Roguelike rhythm game Crypt of the NecroDancer is getting a spin-off. A new look, a new modern setting, and some brand-new tracks are coming your way with Rift of the NecroDancer, the upcoming new game from Brace Yourself Games. “The NecroDancer's back in a brand-new rhythm game spinoff, featuring a whole new look, modern setting, and soundtrack!” they revealed via Twitter. “Help Cadence rhythmically repair rifts and fight foes via a variety of new game modes!” If you loved the original, you’ll want to check out this new, original spin-off, as Cadence switches things up with some brand-new gameplay. Here’s the official synopsis: “The NecroDancer's back in a brand-new rhythm game spinoff! Help Cadence navigate the modern world...

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Sonic Frontiers: Preorders Are Live

Sonic Frontiers is slated to release on PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC on November 8. But you don’t have to wait to reserve a copy for yourself. This 3D Sonic game that features numerous open-world areas along with more traditional levels is available to preorder (see it on Amazon). Below, we have links to retailers, pricing info, edition details, and what to expect in terms of preorder bonuses. Preorder Sonic Frontiers PS5 Get it at Amazon - $59.99 Get it at Best Buy - $59.99 Get it at GameStop - $59.99 Get it at Walmart - $59.99 Get it at PS Store (digital) - $59.99 PS4 Get it at Amazon - $59.99 Get it at Best Buy - $59.99 Get it at GameStop - $59.99 Get it at Walmart - $59.99 Get it at PS Store...

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Xbox Boss Phil Spencer 'Feels Good' About Activision Blizzard Acquisition Progress

How close is Xbox to acquiring Activision Blizzard? At the moment, we have no idea… but Xbox boss Phil Spencer is feeling “good” about how far they’ve come in the process. During an interview with Bloomberg, the Microsoft CEO of gaming gave an update, of sorts, on the upcoming deal which see Microsoft own the beleaguered games company. “I feel good about the progress that we've been making, but I go into the process supportive of people who maybe aren't as close to the gaming industry asking good, hard questions about ‘what is our intent? What does this mean?” he said. “If you play it out over five years, is this constricting a market? Is it growing a market?” Of course, the deal has been under widespread scrutiny since Microsoft...

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Best Budget Gaming PC 2022

PC Gaming might seem prohibitively expensive to get into, but budget gaming PCs offer a surprisingly affordable way into the hobby. You don’t have to spend a full (or multiple) month’s salary to afford a gaming PC to play the best PC games. You can easily get a capable rig with a shiny new CPU and graphics card for a grand or less. An affordable rig is all you need to get you through the PC gaming door to play AAA and indie games. You might get a rig with a small SSD or only one stick of RAM, but you can easily upgrade or replace these components down the line. The same goes with your gaming experience, if you want to upgrade to a 4K gaming monitor you can always buy a more powerful GPU in the future. With that said, these are the...

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High on Life Includes 4 Full-Length Movies, and New Justin Roiland Animated Shorts

High on Life, the new shooter from Squanch Games, has been hiding a little secret - a TV in the game contains over 20 animated shorts from Justin Roiland and friends, not to mention four fully licensed feature films. During a hands-on with the game at Gamescom, we came across the TV, quickly realising that it was showing some fully-fledged commercial pariodies, some voiced by Roiland himself. We asked executive producer Matty Studivan about how much there was to watch, but didn't expect the answer we got: "So we've done a pretty weird thing. We have a TV in the living room in the game, and you can sit down and watch it. You know, Justin has been wanting to get back to Interdimensional Cable, which is a very popular Rick & Morty...

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The Dark Pictures: The Devil In Me Arrives This November

Bandai Namco has confirmed to IGN at Gamescom that The Dark Pictures: The Devil In Me will be released on November 18. Coming to PlayStation 4 and 5, Xbox One and Series, and PC, The Devil In Me acts as the Dark Pictures Anthology's season one finale, concluding the collection of stories that began with 2019's Man of Medan. The unfortunate cast of characters in this episode are part of an entertainment TV series that's struggling to get views. When a mysterious stranger invites them to a faithful recreation of the H. H. Holmes murder castle, however, they're filled with hope at the chance to revive their show. Things take a turn for the worse, of course, and the team finds themselves at the heart of a whole new series of spooky...

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Obsidian's Pentiment Arrives This November

Obsidian Entertainment has announced that its narrative mystery game Pentiment will be released for Xbox One, Xbox Series, and PC on November 15. Announced on Xbox Wire, the game was already confirmed for November but has now received an official date. Its announcement to release period is therefore fairly slim as Pentiment was only announced a couple of months ago in June. Led by industry veteran Josh Sawyer, the game follows a medieval artist named Andreas Maler, an educated journeyman who's close to reaching his ultimate goal of becoming a master artist. As it happens, however, Maler gets caught up in a murder mystery as his friend is accused of killing someone. The player, as Maler, must solve the mystery - or at least decide...

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The Callisto Protocol’s Gross Mutations Make It More Than Just Dead Space 4

The message “shoot the tentacles” is smeared in blood across the wall of one of The Callisto Protocol’s many grimy corridors. It’s both a warning and a tool tip for the mutation mechanic, one of many smaller details that’s helping Striking Distance’s survival horror be something more than just Dead Space 4. This warning marks the start of a 15-minute hands-off demonstration that I saw behind closed doors at Gamescom 2022, which was an extended version of what was shown at Opening Night Live. Mutations, as I soon discovered, transform biophage enemies into more grotesque versions of their original forms. A guy with no arms suddenly had limbs erupting from bloody stumps, and those clawing hands naturally cranked the danger up a notch...

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Forspoken Will Grade Your Combos Like Devil May Cry

Forspoken will include over 100 spells and abilities - and you'll want to get to know how to use them in tandem, because it includes a Devil May Cry-style combo grading system. In an IGN-exclusive Gamescom gameplay video, we see a number of combat encounters, showing the game's heroine Frey swapping between spells on the fly and using combos to take down groups of enemies. The game makes very clear you're being graded on the efficacy of your spell use - a meter counts up from rank D to A, with experience multipliers offered for doing well. The game ups your grades on a number of categories, from using specific spells enemies are vulnerable to, stringing multiple spells together, evading enemies using parkour, switching spells...

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